For their new edition (new translation?) of Walter Benjamin’s Einbahnstraße (One-way Street) in the Modern Classics series, Penguin UK — no doubt realising that it would be near impossible to come up with anything better (no publisher that I know of has been able to do so in 80 years that have ellapsed since the original publication) — have wisely allowed themselves to be hugely influenced by the brilliant, classic cover design that Sasha Stone did up for Rowolt way back in 1928.

In the face of any number of more or less unattractive cover designs for Robin Lane Fox’s The Classical World, Penguin have gone back to basics with special British (also available in Canada) and Australian editions featuring classic Penguin design.

Following on from a previous post about coincidental cover designs, here’s another one:

Both LGF for their French translation of Beowulf and Penguin for their English translation of The Saga of Hrolf Kraki have gone with the same image to illustrate their respective covers. The coincidence is perhaps more readily understandable in this case, however, as both tales are derived from the same Germanic legend.

Penguin describes the image as follows

Detail from a bronze plaque showing a hero struggling with two bears found at Torslunda, Öland in the Statens Historiska Museet, Stockholm.